Does Pinecast let me own my feed?

Owning your feed, feed redirects, and using your own domain for feeds.

Written by Matt Basta Updated over a week ago

The term "owning your feed" can mean many things, depending on who you ask. If this article doesn't cover what you're interested in, please don't hesitate to reach out to us directly.

Setting up a feed redirect

Pinecast will always let you set up a feed redirect to migrate to other services, no questions asked. Simply contact our customer support and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. Feed redirect requests are never denied for any reason.

Unlike many other services, Pinecast will also keep your feed redirect active indefinitely. If you choose to leave Pinecast, you can downgrade to a Demo account (via the Upgrade page). Your feed redirect will remain active until you ever decide to delete your podcast entirely.

Using your own domain name

Pinecast feeds are only served from the pinecast.com domain. This is intentional, and gives you many benefits.

Because the feeds pass through our domain directly, we're able to measure subscribership.

Any improvements made to the Pinecast application servers benefit all feeds. Pinecast actively updates its feeds with new features: for instance, iOS 11 podcast features were enabled the day they were announced by Apple.

If there are problems with your own website or DNS configuration, you could lose subscribers if the feed is hosted on that domain. Pinecast's feeds are actively monitored and tested, so problems can be addressed within minutes (or even seconds) should something go wrong.

Pinecast has no limits on feed size.

Pinecast can scale from a handful of subscribers to hundreds of thousands. We process hundreds of millions of feed requests per month, meaning you'll never need to upgrade your hosting if your show takes off.

Additionally, some web hosts and services may cache your feed, preventing episodes from being released on time. Security plugins offered by some hosts may prevent your feed from being rendered properly.

SEO

Many folks are concerned that using a feed hosted on a different domain might negatively impact SEO. This is generally untrue; links within RSS feeds don't affect search engine rankings in any meaningful way.

Any links you place in your episode description or the podcast Homepage field can point to any domain name. The Pinecast Sites feature is opt-in, allowing you to seamlessly host your own podcast website while using a Pinecast feed.

Correctness

Pinecast guarantees that all feeds are compatible with all major directories and apps. We take great pains to ensure each and every feed is valid.